The Eight Minutes – Here’s Some Dances
The Eight Minutes
Listen/Download – The Eight Minutes – Here’s Some Dances
Greetings all.
I hope everyone enjoyed Hammond Week 2010, and you’re good and ready to slip inside a couple of nice funk 45s.
Before we get going I have a programming note, that being my return to Master Groove @ Forbidden City this Wednesday for some more of that good funk and soul spun at forty-five revolutions per minute. As always, I’ll be joining DJ Bluewater and M-Fasis, and if you’re going to be in the area (that being New York City, on Avenue A between 13th and 14th Streets) you should fall by, grab some cold beer and perhaps a steamed dumpling or two and soak up the sounds.
As I said, this week we’ll be getting down to a couple of excellent funk 45s, all recent acquisitions. Consider it a middle course of sorts, cleansing the palate from the Hammond grooves of the previous week and in preparation of what will hopefully be another live mix from the decks at Forbidden City.
The first of the weeks 45s is something I grabbed off of a set sale list last year after a short sample convinced me that to do otherwise would be foolish. Good thing to, since ‘Here’s Some Dances’ by the Eight Minutes is a groover.
The Eight Minutes were what collector types now refer to as a ‘kiddie band’, i.e. their ranks were composed entirely of children and adolescents. While it would be tempting to see these acts as a reaction to the success of the Jackson Five, keep in mind that a lot of this stuff predates the successes of the brothers from Gary, Indiana. The Five Stairsteps were charting with their Windy C sides as early as 1966 and the Eight Minutes (also from the Chicago area) released their first single in 1968.
The Eight Minutes, composed of children from the Goggins (Hank, Ricky and Ronald) and Sudduth (Hedda, David and Wendel) families originally came together in 1967 as the Soul Impacts. They changed their name and started recording as the Eight Minutes (after adding Juwanna Glover and Carl Monroe, i.e. Minutes seven and eight) and released their first 45 on the S.I.M. label in 1968 (which included ‘Here’s Some Dances’) , and then signed with the Jay Pee label. They recorded four singles for Jay Pee, the third of which includes a re-recording of ‘Here’s Some Dances’. They eventually went on to record an album and a couple of 45s for the Perception label before breaking up in the early 70s.
‘Here’s Some Dances’ is an especially groovy side, working the time tested dance craze angle (with shout outs to the Push and Pull among other steps). The vibe has a rocked up, somewhat psychedelic edge to it, with some tasty wah wah guitar and wailing organ (as well as a drum break) that sounds as if the kids had been listening to Sly and the Family Stone.
The Jay Pee version of ‘Here’s Some Dances’ was comped a few years back by the good people at the Numero Group on “Home Schooled: The ABC’s of Kid Soul”.
It’s a very cool side, and I hope you dig it.
I’ll be back on Wednesday with something from New Orleans.
Peace
Larry
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Themocracy
Larry,
What’s happened to the link to this and other sound files?
Michael
Since the move to my own server I’ve tried to maintain the ’10 days and down’ policy stated on the ‘About’ page. First and foremost it’s good policy, if and when there should be a complaint. I don’t want to give the impression that this is a long-term file sharing arrangement (which it’s not). Second, if I perform blog/file maintenance regularly, the work won’t pile up for me later.
Larry
I got a little behind and didn’t get to hear a couple of things before 10 days. I’ll be more careful.
i want to know where the goggin family now,i have heard that they didnt get to real show bussiness because thier mother and father insist them to get a real life support like doctors and nurses and community directorsand i dont blame their parents. look what had happen to mike,toy toy and janet. its okay to be a recording artist but let’s face it. my mother and dad are not educated but they tell me to look out for pimping frauds in the record bussiness-the mob still runs. i love their fistr and only lp. i sorry to hear about hank’s passing too. bring love to mr. and mrs. goggins.